He built a real underwater city…but his movie was never released

James Cameron, who repeatedly plunged his cameras under the surface of the oceans, told us enough: underwater photography is not an easy task! Whenever a director decides to combine television and cinema, the challenges to overcome are colossal.

However, between 1963 and 1965, 58 years before the Avatar director decided to go the water route, another filmmaker attempted an entirely underwater feature film… which, unfortunately, didn’t happen.

As several tourist or diving sites attest, French director Silver Néjad Atzamba had the ambition to create a feature musical animation film shot entirely underwater almost six decades ago. For the purposes of his film, titled The child and the mermaidTherefore, he had an underwater city built entirely off the coast of the Cote d’Azur, near the Furmig lighthouse in Cap d’Antibes.

As seen in the videos (below) of the city, the remains of which still lie on the seabed, it is clearly a city on a miniature scale. Located at a depth of 30 meters, it nevertheless includes many diverse buildings such as a church, a hotel, a square, shops and even a hairdressing salon. In total, (According to the Voyageurs du Net website) The underwater city includes 200 small buildings for an area of ​​1000 m²!

According to the blog La Scala is foundWith mention of an underwater sequence set in the Aegean Sea (perhaps implying that the latter would later be moved), certain modes of the film would indeed be shot underwater, with added studio animation for characters and fish.

“At that time we were all very excited “The author of the post recalls, Because in parallel with his studies he worked on an animation project that was supposed to revolutionize “cartoons”, as they said at the time, and shake the very foundations of Walt Disney’s productions!

Unfortunately, due to the lack of budget and undoubtedly drowning in particularly difficult shooting conditions, the director was eventually forced to abandon his incredible project. Underwater city The child and the mermaidIn turn, it still awaits on the coast of Antibes, which is regularly visited by movie-loving divers who know where to find it.

(Re)discover our interview with James Cameron on ‘Avatar: Waterway’…